Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1887-02-07
PILLARS OF smoke.
A Line of Blood to Be Traced Through
the Church History Of Nine
teen Hundred Years.
Those Slain for Christ Must Be Counted
by the Miliicns-N0 Land
without its Martyrs.
Every Out-and Out Follower of Christ Must
Suffer Persecution-Symboi of the
TRANSPORTED smoke.


as the annual pew letting has Just &C.
Cured and many have changed places.
This church combines the two plans of
pew rental and free church. The rented
pews this year yielded an advance on all
previous years, so that the income will
be about $50, 900. But about 2000 sit
tirgs are ALWAYS kept free, so that no
one may complain that he cannot worship
here for lack of means. This morning
Professor Browne rendered an organ
solo, First Sonata in D minor by Ritter,
and the congregation sang the hymn:
Our God, oar help in ages past,
Our hope for years TO come.
The subject of the sermon was "Pillars
of Smoke" and the text was taken from
Solomon's song, lit: s'Who is
this tina cometh out of the wilderness
like pillars of smoker" DR.. Talmage
said:
The architecture of the smoke is
Wondrous, whether God with His finger
curls It into cloud, or rounds it into
dome, or points 1t in spire, or spreads
it in wing, or, as in the text, hoists it
in pillar. Watch it winding up from
the country farmhouse in the early morn
ing, showing that the pastoral industries
have begun; or see it ascending from the
chimneys of the city, telling of the homes
fed, the factories turning out valuable
fabric, the printing presses preparing
book and newspaper, and all the 10000
wheels of work IN motion. On a clear
day this vapor spoken Of mounts with
such buoyancy and spreads sucn de-
Iicate veil across the sky, and traces
such graceful lines of circle and semi
circle, and waves, and losses, and sinks,
and scars, and scatters with such atllu-
ence of shape, and color, and suggestive
ness, that il you have never noticed it
yCu are like q man who has all MS
life lived in Paris and yet
never seen the Luxembourg, and all his
life in Rome and never seen the Vatican,
and all his lite at Lockport and never
seen Niagara. Forty-four times the Bible
speaks of the smoke, and it is about time
that somebody breaches sermon recog-
niZing this strange, weird, beautiful,
elastic, charming, terrific and fascinating
vapor. Across the Bible eky floats the
smoke of Sinai, the smoke of Sodom, the
smoke of Al, the smoke of the pit, the
smoke OF the volcanic hills when God
touches them, and in my text the glori-
GUS Church of God coming up out of the
wilderness like pillars of smoke.
In the first place these pillars OF smoke
in my text indicate the suffering the
Church of God has endured. What do
meanby the Church? | mean not a building,
not sect, but those who in all ages and
all lands and of all beliefs, love God and
are trying to do right. For many cen
turtles the heavens have been black with
the smoke of martyrdom. If set side by
side you could girdle the earth with the
fires of persecution. Rowland Taylor
burned at Hsdleigh, Latimer burned at
oxford, John Rogers burned a. Smith
field, John Hooper burned at Gloucester,
John Huss burned at Constance, Law
renee Saunders burned at Coventry, Joan
of Arc burned at Rouen. Pr0testants
have sometimes pointed to the Catholics
as prosecutors, but both Protestant and
Catholic have practiced Infamous cruel
ties. The Catholics during the reign of
Hunneric were By Professionals put to the
worst tortures, stripped of their clothing,
hoisted in the air by ,ulleys with weights
suspended from their feet, then let down,
and ears and eyes, nose and tongue were
amputated and red hot plates of iron
were put against the tenderest parts OF
their bodies. George Bancroft, the his
torian, says of the state of Maryland Z:
"In the land which Catholics had
opened to Professionals mass might
not be said publicly; no Catholic
priest or bishop might utter his faith in
3 voice Of persuasion; no Catholic might
teach the young. If q wayward child OF
a Papist would but become an apostate,
the law wrested for him from his parents
share of their properly. Such were the
methods adopted to prevent the growth
ofPopery." Speaking Of Ireland, Ban
croft, the historian, says: "Such priests
as were permitted to reside in Ireland
were required to be registered, and were
kept like prisoners st large within pre-
scribed limits. All Papists exercising
ecclesiastical jurisdiction, all monks,
friars and regular priests, and all priests
not then actually in parishes and to be
registered, were banished from Ireland
under pain of transportation and, on re-
turn, of being hanged, drawn and quar-
tered.n
Catholicism as well as Professionalism
has had its martyrs. 1t does seem as if
when any one sect got complete domi-
nancy in any land, the devil of persecu-
ton and cruelty took possession OF that
sect. Then see the Catholics after the
Huguenots. See the Gentiles after the
jews III 1Ouldlue, Wuere d great pit was
dug and fire lighted at the bottom of the
pit, and l60 Jewish victims were con-
sumed. See the Presbyterian Parliament
of England, more tyrannical in their treat
ment of opponents than had been the
criminal courts. Persecution against the
Baptists by Pedo- Bsptists. Persecution
of the Established church against the
Methodist church. Persecution against
the Quakers. Persecution against the
Presbyterians. Under Emperor Diocle-
tian IA, 900 Christians were mastered,
and 700, 900 more of them died from ban
ishment and exposure. Witness the SUI
ferings of the Wsldenses, of the Abb
genses, of the HISTORIANS. Witness st.
Bartholemew's massacer. Witness the
Duke of Alva driving out of life
$4,000 Christians. Witness Herod, and
Nero, and Decius, and Hildebrand, and
Torquemada, and Earl OF Montfort, and
Lord Clsverhouse, who when told that he
must give account for his cruelties said:
az have no need to account to man, and
as for God will take him IN my own
hands"
a red line runs through the church his
tory of 1900 years-a line of blood. Not
by the hundreds of thousands but by the
millions must we count those slain for